


Cold Things

by mnemememory



Category: Power Rangers (2017)
Genre: Angst, F/F, Introspection, Trini-centric - Freeform, i'll change the tags when we have something more official - Freeform, idk Trini's last name and I'm iffy about using "Kwan", sort of
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-29
Updated: 2017-03-29
Packaged: 2018-10-12 09:22:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,004
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10487490
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mnemememory/pseuds/mnemememory
Summary: Trini aches for all of this to be real.Or, a conversation between Zach and Trini that is 90% monologue.





	

**Author's Note:**

> this movie has RUINED me. goddamn, just when i thought i was out of the PR fandom, this comes along and destroys all my hopes and dreams. HELLO NEW SHIP. sorry it's so short, haha. usually i write more.

“What are you even doing out here?”

Trini glances up from her phone, not bothering to move. Zach has managed to somehow drape himself over one of the rocks in a position that means he’s either boneless or used to extreme muscle pain, his back bent at an odd angle and his feet kicked up high.

“What, here?” she says, glancing around with faux surprise. They’re both sitting above the gold mine, half-hidden by the rocks and some low scrubs. People swarm around like ants below them, cleaning up Rita’s destruction, but there’s not much point. All the gold is gone, and with it, most of their jobs. Trini’s just thankful no one in her family is a mineworker; she doesn’t think she can handle moving again. Not this time.

“Where else?” Zach says, and he’s grinning. He’s got a nice grin. Trini almost wishes that she was attracted to it, because that would make things so much _easier_.

“I needed a break,” she says, going back to scrolling through her phone. It’s old, but sturdy – it’s somehow managed to last through three trips to Zordon, but she doesn’t think it’s going to be around for much longer. She’s going to have to invest in something more expensive, something waterproof. Though when phone companies say _waterproof_ , she doesn’t think they mean _Go ahead and go the veritably equivalent of cliff-diving every other day_ , _this phone will 100% survive the impact_.

“I get that,” Zach says. Trini thinks back to the campfire, to the way his voice echoed raw over the rocks. _My Mum is the BEST_.

She gives him a pointed look. “I wanted to be alone.”

“I get that, too,” Zach says, but he doesn’t move. Trini’s half grateful, half aggravated. Being alone used to be so much easier, before she had people who actually wanted to take up her time. She used to slot it between her family and school, climbing around the mines when things got too loud. _Talk more_ , her mother said, _talk, talk, TALK. We want to hear about your day, except we don’t, because we want you to say what we want you to say. Do you have friends? A boyfriend? Please tell me you have a boyfriend_.

When Trini was little, she liked playing dress-up. It was an easy way to get a quick smile from her mother; she would put on the dress, twirl around, and then breathe out when she was allowed to take it off. Easy, easy. She liked yellow the best, but her Mum liked white, and pink. _So beautiful_ , she cooed. _My beautiful baby girl_.

Somewhere along the line, she’d stopped smiling. Somewhere along the line, Trini had done something to make her mother stop smiling. She used to think, _If only I could figure it out – the exact day, the exact moment, the exact action. I’ll fix it. I’ll fix it._

Zach doesn’t push, doesn’t pry, doesn’t try to pull answers from her that she doesn’t want to give. He stays there and he stays silent; he lets the world rush in and fill the gaps. The people below them are so far away; they’re ants. Trini wonders what they’re going to do now that their jobs have been rendered obsolete. All the gold scattered across the city streets is long-gone; the largest pieces trucked away by the council, the smaller pieces smuggled away into pockets and under flower-pots.

“My parents,” she finally says, and she’s not forcing the words out. She’s talking because she wants to, because she likes Zach and she wants him to be here. “I’m fighting with my Mum.”

“Yeah?”

“I’m coming home late,” she says. “They think I’m getting involved in stuff that I shouldn’t be involved in.”

Zach laughs at her. “Well, aren’t you?”

“Being a Ranger is a little different from being in a gang,” Trini says dryly.

“Are you sure?” Zach says. “I mean, we have uniforms and everything. Rules. We’re a gang of superheroes! How cool is that?”

“Sure,” Trini says, rolling her eyes.

“And besides, this is _Angel Grove_. Do we even have gangs?”

“We’ve got delinquents,” Trini says. “I mean, none of us are exactly saints.”

Zach gives a loud sigh, flopping both his arms dramatically to either side. “We already saved this stupid city,” he says. “What more do they want?”

“Insurance liability?” Trini says. “I don’t know how many clauses there are for ‘Giant Gold Alien Attacks’.”

“You’d be surprised,” Zach says. “But yeah, maybe it’s a good thing no one knows who we are. I mean, we didn’t exactly skimp on property damage.”

Both of them cringe. Trini still has nightmares about that, about piloting her zord and stepping on people. Trini still has nightmares about a lot of things.

“So why are _you_ here?” Trini says, when the silence has stretched long enough to be a little uncomfortable. She’s so used to doing everything without talking, without explaining – it always drives her mother crazy, the way she doesn’t respond. _I’ll talk if you’ll listen_ , she wants to say, but asking to be listened to is as pointless as screaming. _I’m a superhero_ , she says, and her mother says: _Oh my gosh, you’re doing drugs_.

“I don’t want to go home,” Zach says, shrugging.

Trini give shim a once-over, eyes narrowing as she takes in his dusty jacket and hollow cheeks. There are dark circles tattooed underneath his eyes.

“Did you even go home last night?” she says.

“Of course,” Zach says. “I had to make my Mum breakfast.”

Trini thinks about asking, _Did you sleep there_? But she already knows the answer to that, and she’s never been one to waste people’s time.

“Are you sleeping out here?” she says instead, gesturing around. Their bonfire place is a little ways off, unused for the last few nights. They try to keep it a regular thing, but the others have parents they don’t want to piss off. Jason’s been freaked over his Dad since the fight, and Billy doesn’t want to leave his Mum alone. Trini doesn’t know what’s going on with Kim. She doesn’t want to know.

Kim’s long and lean, all muscles and edges. She’s got eyes that are sharp enough to cut. Trini doesn’t want to look at her too long, because she’s always done stupid things for pretty people. Pretty girls. Kim is most definitely one of the prettiest girls she’s ever seen, and Trini’s already done stupid things for her.

“It’s comfy,” Zach says. “There’s no roof. I can see all the stars, up here.”

Trini tilts her head back and considers the sky. It’s slightly overcast today, the sun burning behind a thick layer of grey-skinned clouds. If she closes her eyes, she can imagine the night sky, sparkling with thousands of pieces of white light. The moon hangs low in the sky, silver and fat.

“You ever think about it?” she says. “All of this? There are _aliens_.”

Zach sits up, stretching his arms high over his head. Trini really wishes she was attracted to him. “Of course,” he says, twisting to smile at her. It’s hard to get Zach to smile – at least, to smile for real – and Trini feels an almost unfamiliar pang of accomplishment. _This is what it’s like to have friends_ , she thinks, and almost wants to throw up. “Of course I think about it. I mean, with Rita and Goldar and – _everything_. This is so crazy. All of this is so crazy.”

He reaches into his pocket and pills out his power coin, holding it up to the weak sunlight. It burns a black hole in the sky, and Trini feels her own pocket tingle with sympathetic energy.

The night after the car crash, Trini woke up in her bed. She woke up without a scratch on her skin, with her clothing in shreds, with her head aching and her fingers itching for – something. For something.

She got out of bed and looking around, stomach doing summersaults and backflips and everything in-between. Then she realised she was holding something.

The yellow gem seemed so small in her palm, almost fragile; it fit so well against her skin. It was pretty.

Trini didn’t bother going to school; there had never been much point on the best of days, and this wasn’t even close. She was alive, but she didn’t know why, and she was going to find out.

The black glass held no answers, only more confusion; the coin in her pocket tugged her forward, tugged her upward, until her fingers were scraping against the rocks and she was propelling herself onward and upward, faster than anything she had ever done before. _This is freedom_ , Trini thought, leaping forward with new muscles. _This is it. I’m free, I’m free, I’m free_.

Trini’s phone _dings_. It really is a good phone; reception up here is always spotty, so she’s never really sure if she’s missing out on something. She used to like it that way. It used to be her excuse, her getaway; _Oh, sorry Mum, I didn’t get your call. The reception here is horrible, haven’t you noticed_?

She can’t believe that’s changed. She can’t believe that now she keeps to the places she knows will have reception, just so the others can keep in contact. That’s crazy. That’s insane. She’s changing herself, slowly and surely, and she doesn’t – she doesn’t know if that’s going to be enough for them to stick around. It gets worse the longer it goes on. Like, _God, we’ve made it this far. This is going to hurt so much when it all falls apart_.

It’s Kim, and it’s short – most of Kim’s texts are short. _you coming today?_

Kim doesn’t like texting them. She doesn’t like calling them, either, not when there’s any other option. More than once, she’s leaned over and asked Trini: _Hey, could you ask Jason if he wants to come hang out with us?_ or Billy, or Zach. It’s illogical, because Kim _has_ a phone, but she does it anyway. It was the pretty face. Trini’s always been stupid for a pretty face.

(it’s the rest of her, too).

Sometimes, Trini can still feel the way the campfire singed her skin. If she’s thinking about it hard enough, if she’s trying to drown out everything else – the noise ( _Why won’t you just TALK to me, Trini?_ ), the people – she drifts backward, lets her mind detach from the present. She doesn’t have to do it so often, now, not when there’s more _here_ and _now_ than there ever was before, but sometimes –

Trini thinks of: _Not me. Skip me._

She thinks of: _Boyfriend problems? Girlfriend problems?_

It was so easy, when she didn’t have people to care about. Emotions are so messy.

 “You going to school?” she asks, sitting up. Her usual workout routine hasn’t even made a dent into her energy levels – nothing much does anymore, outside of sparring in the pit. She almost misses it, the burn of her muscles, the stretching of her skin. Working out seemed so much more satisfying when she could feel the way it built up her body; now it’s a routine, a route, something she does to pass the time. Everything seems harsh and jagged and almost out of place, but not quite. It’s frightening, the way things are slotting in around her, the way these people are slotting in around her. _I’m going to leave_ , she wants to tell them, _I’m going to leave, I always do. You’re going to leave, you always do._

It’s still early, so if they rush, there’s still time to make second period.

Zach looks like he’s thinking about it. Trini leans back on her elbows and waits for him to answer, doesn’t push, doesn’t pull.

“I guess,” he finally says, jumping to his feet. “I promised Billy I’d be there for science today.”

Trini doesn’t laugh at him, but it’s a close thing. “Of course,” she says. “Come on, I’ll race you.”

 

**Author's Note:**

> more than happy to take prompts for PR btw. come scream at me on tumblr (http://mnemememory.tumblr.com/). got some plans for a few more of these, so...


End file.
